Governance / Democracy

Research Interest

Ali Hasan

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Rhetoric

Ali Hasan is in his third-year pursuing a B.A. in Political Science with a concentration in Comparative Politics and a minor in Rhetoric. His interests include constitutional law, failed states, postcolonial politics, political theory, and the intersection of rhetoric and politics. Hasan is also involved with the City of Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission, UC Berkeley’s model UN team, and political publications centered around international relations and human rights. After graduation, he hopes to pursue law school and learn more about criminal justice reform and public interest law...

Ben Harper

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Music

Ben Harper is a senior pursuing a B.A. in Political Science and Music. His academic interests include early to modern political theory and comparative political economy. Since January 2020, he has served as a research assistant to Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus David Collier, assisting with writing, editing, and researching scholarly work on the critical junctures methodology in Political Science. He is currently conducting research on contemporary populism and globalization using this framework. He has also interned at the Oakland Mayor’s Office, where he conducted research on policies...

Krish Gopalan

Undergraduate Student
Molecular and Cell Biology
Public Health
Global Poverty and Practice

Krish Gopalan is a fourth-year student at UC Berkeley from Southern California. He is pursuing a B.A. Molecular and Cell Biology and minoring in both Global Public Health and Global Poverty and Practice. His interests broadly include the politics of health and development in the Global South, especially in South Asia. His prior research includes analyses into the effectiveness of the Integrated Rural Development Program and the role of private-public partnerships in developing health infrastructure in India. At Berkeley, he was involved with the California Public Interest Research Group,...

Luis Hassan Gallardo

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Ethnic Studies

Luis Hassan Gallardo is a senior from Los Angeles, CA, majoring in Political Science and Ethnic Studies. He is interested in how his fields of study intersect with issues of international affairs and migration policy. Luis is also currently working with Sociology Professor Cybelle Fox to conduct historical analyses of the United States Sanctuary Movement and the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative to map immigrant health and legal clinics in California. After graduation, he hopes to continue his work on immigration advocacy, policy, and research before applying to law school....

Adrian Frias

Undergraduate Fellow
Geography
Ethnic Studies
Education

Adrian Frias (he/him) is a junior from Carson, California, pursuing a double major in Geography and Ethnic Studies with a minor in Education. His research interests include environmental justice, immigration, public transportation, energy policy, city planning, and race/ethnicity. Previously, Frias has gained experience doing research on his hometown's oil refineries. He has worked as a legal/communications intern for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and currently works as a peer academic counselor for Berkeley's Educational Opportunity Program (EOP). In the near...

Louise Curtis

Undergraudate Student
History

Louise Curtis is a senior majoring in History with a minor in French. She is interested in early modern intellectual history and the history of political thought, especially as it relates to common people. Since March 2019 Louise has worked as a research assistant to David Collier, Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Political Science, on his Critical Junctures project. She assists with research, editing, and writing on American electoral history and methodology in political science for his forthcoming book.

Oren Samet

Graduate Student
Political Science

Oren Samet is pursuing a PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include comparative politics and comparative democratization, with a particular focus on political transitions, parties, and elections in Southeast Asia. Before coming to Berkeley, he worked in various roles for non-governmental organizations in Thailand, including as Research and Advocacy Director for ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, a network of regional legislators. He previously worked as a Junior Fellow in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie...

Matthew Kovac

Graduate Student
History

Matthew Kovac is PhD student in History at the University of California, Berkeley. His current research focuses on the Irish republican movement, decolonization, and the Global Cold War.

Kovac is the recipient of the 2021 IIS Pre-Dissertation Research Grant.

Gabriel Lesser

Graduate Student
Spanish and Portuguese

Gabriel Lesser is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. His interests include 19th and 20th century humor, visual studies, caricatures, and cartoons in Mexico and Brazil.

He is the recipient of the 2021 IIS Pre-Disseration Research Grant.

Blaze Joel

Graduate Student
History

Blaze Joel is a Ph.D. student in the History Department at the University of California Berkeley. His research focuses on nationalism, memory, violence, and national identity in twentieth-century Europe. He studies these issues in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, and the Basque Country, as well as in an international, trans-European framework. He also studies the Cold War in a global perspective.

Joel is a recipient of the 2021 IIS...